


Being a Better Man

by still_lycoris



Category: Fringe
Genre: Anger, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-29
Updated: 2015-12-29
Packaged: 2018-05-10 05:44:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5573085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Olivia talks to Peter after they discover what's happened to Walter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Being a Better Man

At first, Peter was furious.

“No. No, this is _not_ how it ends. It can't be!”

Olivia tried to talk but Peter wasn't listening. He paced the laboratory, staring at all of Walter's things. Things just left, abandoned, perhaps mid-touch. Never to be used again – at least, not by Walter. 

“I can't lose him again,” Peter said, his voice shaking now. “I _can't_. I can't so we'll just … we'll think of something, we can _fix_ this, we can … ”

“Peter.” Olivia said, her voice gentle. “Peter, you have to stop this. You watched the tape. There's nothing we can do.”

“No! I don't care what Walter thought, Walter's been wrong before and this time he's wrong and we'll fix this, somewhere in all this stuff we can find the answer and it will be fine, it … it … we'll get my Dad back, I don't care what I have to do … ”

He was beginning to shake. Olivia stepped quietly up to him, put her hand on his arm. He didn't look at her. He was staring at the desk, at things that Walter had written, ideas for experiments that would never be completed. She knew that if she left him alone, Peter would try, would tear the world apart to try and get his father back. So she had to stop him. And she knew how.

“Peter,” she said. “Be a better man than your father.”

Peter cried then, cried in her arms like a child. Olivia stroked his hair and held him close, trying to fight her own tears. Later on, she would cry and mourn Walter. She could help Peter arrange something, a funeral, a memorial. They would tell Etta stories of the grandfather that she wouldn’t see again and they would remember him and what he had done for them.

But that was the future.

Better to focus on right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for 12dayschristmas


End file.
